LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


RESURRECTING  LIFE 


New  Poetry:  Spring  1921 

IN  AMERICAN 

by  John  V.  A.  Weaver 

UNACCUSTOMED  AS  I  AM 
by  Morrie  Ryskind 

THE  MYSTIC  WARRIOR 
by  James  Oppenheim 

PUNCH:  THE  IMMORTAL  LIAR 
by  Conrad  Aiken 

MEDALLIONS  IN  CLAY 
by  Richard  Aldington 


**And  a  flashing  wand  of  supreme  melody- 
Furling  back  all  space — 
Before  the  great  vibrating  entry 
Of  our  eternal  union." 


RESURRECTING  LIFE 

MICHAEL  STRANGE 

WITH       DRAWINGS       BY' 
JOHN         BARRYMORE 


"  If  you  can  love  me  for  what  I  am,  we  shall  be  the 
happier.  If  you  cannot,  I  will  still  seek  to  deserve 
that  you  should.  I  will  not  hide  my  tastes  or  aver 
sions.  I  will  so  trust  that  what  is  deep  is  holy,  that  I 
will  do  strongly  before  the  sun  and  moon  whatever 
inly  rejoices  me,  and  the  heart  appoints." 

From  Emerson,  "  Self-Reliance." 


NEW    YORK        ALFRED-A-.KNOPF        1921 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

r>  A  vrc 


COPYRIGHT,  1921,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OT    AMERICA 


Afoot  and  light-hearted,  I  take  to  the  open  road, 

Healthy,  free,  the  world  before  me, 

The  long  brown  path  before  me,  leading  wherever  I  choose. 

Henceforth  I  ask  not  good  fortune  —  I  myself  am  good  fortune; 
Henceforth  I  whimper  no  more,  postpone  no  more,  need  nothing, 
Strong  and  content,  I  travel  the  open  road. 

"  The  Song  of  the  Open  Road." 

— WALT  WHITMAN. 


CONTENTS 

VISIONARY 

I.  3 

II.  6 

III.  7 

IV.  8 
V.  9 

VI.  10 

VII.  11 

VIII.  12 

IX.  13 

X.  14 

XL  16 

XII.  19 

XIII.  21 

XIV.  23 
XV.  25 

XVI.  26 

XVII.  27 

XVIII.  29 

XIX.  31 

EMOTIONAL 

I.  35 

II.  36 

III.  37 

IV.  38 
V.  39 


VI.  41 

VII.  42 

VIII.  44 

IX.  45 

X.  46 

XI.  48 

XII.  49 

XIII.  50 

XIV.  51 
XV.  52 

XVI.  55 

XVII.  56 

XVIII.  58 

XIX.  59 

XX.  60 

XXI.  61 

XXII.  62 

XXIII.  64 

XXIV.  66 
XXV.  68 

XXVI.  69 

XXVII.  70 

DESCRIPTIVE 

I-  75 

«•  76 

III.  77 

IV.  78 
V.  79 

VI-  80 

VII-  82 

VIII.  83 


IX. 


84 


RESURRECTING  LIFE 


VISIONARY 


I 

RESURRECTING  LIFE 

IT  is  midday  and  the  wind  off  the  desert 

Is  choked,  flattened  down 

In  a  glaring  pulse  of  heavily  beating  sunlight  — 

And  my  angel  sleeping  beside  the  well, 

His  grave  brow  half  hidden 

In  the  curve  of  a  mighty  arm  — 

Nor  is  there  a  sound, 

Since  all  grading  energies  are  sucked  into  this  yellow  gape 

Of  heavily  pouring  silence  — 

Only  I  am  restless  —  indeterminate  — 

And  feeling  along  my  limbs  for  the  birth  of  wings. 

Only  I  am  turned  aside 

From  partaking  in  general  consciousness  — 

And  because  of  confusion  shielding  some  dream 

I  dare  not  remember  — 

It  is  still  — 

And  the  olive-trees  stand  like  bereaved  mothers 

Gnarled  —  intercessional  —  awaiting  a  Messiah. 

O   how  still  it  is  — 

And  the  whole  sky  is  like  an  indrawn  breath 

Oppressing  my  breast  in  azure  vice  — 

0    I  am  compelled  to  reduce  this  restlessness  — 
To  steal  out  from  under  the  wing  of  my  angel  — 
And  away  from  the  crowned  shades  along  his  brow  — 
[3] 


And  powdered  with  jasmine  —  lute-haunted  — 
Sandalled  in  myrrh  —  in  eagerness  — 
Go  to  you  —  there  —  reaching  your  listless  length 
Significantly  toward  me  — 

Through  those  close  oval  aisles  of  the  olive-trees  — 
To  you  there  —  stretching  toward  me  in  vague,  half-awakened 
rhythms  — 

0  let  our  kiss  he  conclusive  — 

Let  the  spheres  heave  tides  of  anguished  music 

Over  us  — 

And  a  swirl  of  volcanic  spirits  frown  the  air 

Into  pelting  storm  — 

Until  —  until  —  those  purple   shields   of  terrible  exhaustion 

Muttering  down  upon  us  — 

And  painting  across  our  swooning  inward  eye  — 

Stars  —  suns  —  Medusa-haired  — 

Aye,  until  I  am  free  to  stir  —  to  detach  —  and  arise 

Passing  back  into  the  presence  of  my  angel  —  my  love  — 

For  maybe  he  still  is  sleeping  beside  the  well  — 

His  grave  brow  half  hidden  — 

In  the  curve  of  a  mighty  arm. 

Yet  sadness  —  bleakness  of  satiety 

Making  wilderness  of  the  inner  room  — 

And  my  depths  only  unpinched  in  this  inner  room  — 

1  without  sufficient  weakness  for  rejecting  my  necessities  — 
Or  sufficient  strength  to  spiritually  profit  through  repletion  — 
0  darkness  —  0  chaos  of  ice-worms  coiling  shut 

Over  my  fall  between  two  mainstays  —  the  wing  —  the  claw  — 
And  both  sighted  perfectly  — 
O  listlessness  — 

And  dizzy  prick  of  divided  paths  under  my  feet  — 
O  darkening  and  twisting  —  and  languor  against  amending  — 
Stupefying  all  reaction  —  into  the  calm  of  void. 
[4] 


Nevertheless  approaching  me  now  —  such  multitudes  of  exhal 
ing  lilies 

Sheafed  under  the  surpliced  arm  — 

Beneath  the  laced  slim  arm  of  acolytes  — 

They  passing  me  by  a  long  pale  spray  — 

Upon  the  thunder  hoom  of  chaunting  — 

While  behind  them  —  outlined  in  violet  dusk  — 

And  as  some  purple  waterfall  erupting  from  the  moon's  vague 
crescent 

The  vast  straight  shadow  of  my  pensive  angel  — 

And  a  white  foam  of  delight 

Bursting  the  surface  of  my  skin  — 

And  forming  into  patches  of  silken  fleece 

Expanding  into  curves  —  dilating  into  plumes  — 

Concurring  —  spreading  —  into  pinions  —  wings  — 

Soaring  me  up  out  of  these  long  entangling  earth  grasses  — 

Into  ether  —  opalescent  —  faintly  barred  in  gold  — 

And  finally  toward  the  luminous  breast  of  my  angel  —  my 

love  — 

Awaiting  me  —  with  such  mightily  outstretched  arms  — 
And  the  tender-breasted  clouds 
Breaking  from  their  weight  of  music  — 
And   pouring  heaven-bright  wine   down   into   our   ascending 

hearts  — 

And  a  flashing  wand  of  supreme  melody  — 
Furling  back  all  space  — 
Before  the  great  vibrating  entry 
Of  our  eternal  union. 


[5] 


II 

THOUGHT 

How  beautiful  is  thought 

Staining  me  with  gusts  of  pulsating  flushes  — 

Even  as  the  wind  whipping  up  into  towering  descendant  waves 

All  garden  fragrance. 

0    thought  is  beautiful  — 

A  jewel  through  which  appearing  to  me  in  a  most  precious 

light 
All    of    humanity    annexing  —  avoiding  —  toward    inevitably 

spreading 
Into  forms  more  vast  — 

0  thought  —  a  various  lover  jetting  into  life 
Evermore  our  identity  — 
And  closing  away  the  personal 
With  kindly  smile. 

So  thought  —  a  depth  of  extreme  polish 

Ever  expanding  in  circles 

And  into  which  are  reflected  and  measured  exactly 

Our  mortal  reactions. 

For  thought  is  a  titan's  rod  thrown  wide 
Hooking  and  hauling  toward  the  surface  — 
Those  turgid  coil-sprawled  inmates  of  sea-bottom. 

And  again  thought  is  a  hand  flung  up  into  paradise  — 
For  grasping  those  birds  athunder 
Round  the  brow  of  God. 
[6] 


Ill 

FOR  EVER  gathering  among  these  tidal  washes  of  my  latest  depth 

Waves  —  forming  —  rearing  —  thundering  colossally  down  — 

Until  finally  extant  upon  the  surface  — 

Merely  the  edge  of  my  meaning  —  and  this  — 

Hissing  freshly  —  and  toward  the  degree  of  your  understanding 

With  moist  —  fluctuating  —  fingers. 


[7] 


IV 

WALKING  DOWN  TO  THE  PACIFIC 

I,  COMING  to  weave  a  lasting  garland 

From  the  perfume  of  these  trellised  roses  — 

And  to  preserve  the  effulgent  glare  of  this  summer  noon 
tide— 

So  redolent  of  hay  new-mown  —  so  besought  with  the  breath 
of  clover  — 

So  slashed  with  cool  salt  rays 

Drifting  up  from  the  panting  sea. 

I,  coming  to  recall  the  smell  of  hot  sand 

Draped  with  panelled  sea-grass  — 

And  to  review  the  flocked  shadows  of  swooping  gulls 

Above  rushing  patterns  of  foam  — 

And  to  converse  with  the  dabbling  pout  of  tides 

Slipping  wistfully  backward  into  Pacific  calm. 

While  just  beside  me  glittering  —  earth  dunes  — 
Garlanded  with  arrested  waterfalls  of  purple  flowers  — 
While  just  behind  these  mountains  — 
Their  rhythmic  mauve  unfolding 
Sharply  cutting  the  sky's  humid  azure 
In  strange  titanic  profile. 

Ah  these  mountains  —  appearing  —  disappearing  for  me  — 

Among  their  drifting  symphonies  of  clouds 

So  persuading  me  of  peace  — 

So  pervading  me  with  glances 

From  that  mysterious  grail-like  countenance 

Of  eternal  aspiration. 

[8] 


FROM  where  do  I  waken  —  from  where  — 
To  be  wrung  by  the  breath  of  intimacies 
Just  evaporating  from  before  my  pursuing  arms  — 
To  be  flattened  back  aghast  from  the  swift  streaking  by 
Of  forms  in  profile  —  poignantly  akin  — 
Clouded  phosphorescent  with  grief  —  joy  — 
And  surely  all  lately  fastened  upon  me 
In  keenest  various  intercourse  — 
Mother  —  lover  —  child  —  0   all  go  by  — 
Leaving  me  the  echo  of  a  chord  vast  in  pathos  — 
For  this  morning  my  soul  sheathed  amongst  tattered  banners  — 
(And  the  legend  across  sundered  —  scorched  — 
From  struggles  invisible  to  memory  —  yet  none  the  less  pres 
ent — ) 

And  shreds  of  these  —  blowing  up  into  the  day  —  titanic  mist- 
ribbons 

Arresting  —  abstracting  —  encompassing  me  — 
Until  my  whole  being  growing  aware  of  slanting  mournfully 

backwards 

For  a  last  look  —  at  what  —  at  what  — 
Until  I  am  contorted  from  desiring  to  step  away 
Out  of  my  own  proceeding  step  — 
Away  from  this  alien  day  and  so  catching  up  at  last 
With  that  mystic  swirl  envisaging  —  chaunting  — 
The  History  of  Me 
Along  spherical  alley-ways  of  unspoken  age. 


[9] 


VI 

O  KEENLY  aware  this  morning  of  my  Inward  God  — 
And  sense  emanating  from  Him  — 
A  bristling  halo  of  irradiant  paths  — 

And  placing  my  feet  trustingly  amongst  these 

Yet  behold  —  how  they  scorch  —  confuse  me  — 

Folding    up  —  disappearing  —  before    my     already     started 

step  — 

Aye  leaving  me  nauseate  —  dangling  over  chaos  — 
And  with  a  vast  burden  pressing  out  through  me  — 
While  a  voice  chilling  my  fear-scaled  skin  —  and  proclaiming 
For  what  other  purpose  your  perpetual  Recurrence  — 
Save  to  become  further  impregnate  with  Spirit  — 
And  toward  a  Birth  for  ever  more  fatal  — 
To  the  flesh. 


[10] 


VII 

So  much  of  me  still  turning  back  and  dancing 
In  that  red  glare  of  promiscuous  praise  — 
So  much  of  me  still  eloquent  with  bitterness 
Against  my  oppressors  — 

Yet  so  much  of  me  vigil-haunted 

Arrested  in  outstretching  worshipping  attitude 

Toward  welcoming  some  radiance  — 

Some  lustre  vastly  forming  in  contour  divinely  familiar 

Against  the  horizon  — 

Some  splendour  —  inclining  —  stepping  down  — 

Saluting  —  enfolding  — 

To  ascend  with  me  again. 


VIII 
VISION 

I  WILL  follow  the  inward  chime 

Back  through  empurpling  cups  of  concave  hills  — 

Back  through  a  swaying  clot  of  drowned  faces  — 

(All  fastened  and  by  nightmare  pain  into  the  sedge  of  memory) 

Back  beyond  those  negative  rivers  stilled  past  egress  — 

And  out  at  last  among  brightening  grasses  — 

Grasses  rushing  up  into  hills  —  peaks  — 

And  up  from  these  through  a  fume  of  clouds  —  aye  at  last  into 

ether  — 
Ether  —  bright    with    those    silver    tracks    of    planet-visiting 

angels  — 
And  austerely  fragrant  from  the  trailing  of  their  doom-lined 

scarves  — 

Aye  —  out  into  ether  humming  from  the  dart  of  stars 
Shaken  by  a  choral  thunder  — 
Until  at  last  appearing  among  arching  naves  — 
These  ascending  in  architectural  jet  — 
And  arrested  in  vast  foaming  coils  of  livid  lace  — 
And  where  —  enlarging  at  the  farthest  end  of  distance  — 
The  Eucharist  —  chromatic-rayed 
And  holding  forth  its  Mystic  Tenant  — 
Of  Transfigured  Rest. 


[12] 


IX 

0  THOSE  vast  limbs  containing  in  the  chrysalis  of  me  — 

0  this  titanic  aerial  being  so  fettered  yet 

In  the  slime  of  my  defective  understanding  — 

This  God  with  spheres  nestling  in  His  palm 

Asleep  in  me  yet  — 

And  veiled  in  the  stupor  of  my  fear  of  things 

Concerning  this  one  tiny  world. 

0   this  God  with  His  crown  of  stars 
And  breath  reminiscent  of  heavenly  gardens  — 
And  eyes  closed  over  unearthly  clarities  — 
And  eyes  closed  in  considerate  love  for  me  — 
Comprehending  I  am  unable  to  meet  so  far 
His  open  look. 

Yet  it  is  a  weight  —  an  ever-present  significance  — 

A  wing  upon  my  one  shoulder  already  — 

This  feeling  myself  pregnant 

With  such  dim  horizon  stretching  form  — 

Such  form  — 

Flinging  up  before  me  like  a  tent  pole 

And  lowering  down  the  clouds  in  festoons  around  it  — 

Such  form  one  day  springing  out  of  me  —  out  of  you  — 

And  sheaved  in  the  hauteur  of  an  image 

We  have  worshipped  through  centuries. 


[13] 


0  DEATH,  I  am  secretly  in  love  with  you  — 
For  will  you  not  be  that  arm  about  me 

Embracing  —  sustaining  —  my  long  desiring  to  lean  back  — 
0    will  there  not  be  across  your  face  a  fused  glow  of  resem 
blance 

To  all  the  beloveds  lost  —  searched  for  — 
Along  those  mighty  roads  of  the  ages  — 

0   will  you  not  hold  between  your  hands 

A  deific  forge  beaten  cup  of  luminous  wine  — 

For  acclaiming  the  victory  of  great  quests  — 

0  between  your  hands  —  gentle  as  the  hushed  flutter  of 
wings  — 

Will  you  not  bear  this  wine  — 

And  brought  from  its  source  a  holy  fount 

Over  which  the  image  of  the  sun  perpetually  rising  —  shed 
ding  down  — 

And  at  the  very  end  of  flashing  ranks  of  angels  triumphal 

Whose  helmets  for  ever  turning  to  mirror  — 

This  diffusing  —  rearing  Grail  of  pouring  iridescence  — 

0  Death,  will  you  not  fill  me  with  Love  again  — 

With  Love  in  its  resonant  morning  mood  — 

With  Love  once  more  for  all  those 

For  whom  I  have  lost  love  in  anguish  — 

O  shall  not  those  blasted  holes  of  my  wounds 

With  their  stark-twisted  clumps  of  raw  nerve  — 

[14] 


Be  filled  in  —  be  pleated  down 

With   joyous  sprays   of  blossom  acutely  fragrant  —  and  by 
you  — 

0  Death,  I  am  secretly  in  love  with  you  — 

Your  motions  suggesting  —  undulating  —  receding  for  me  — 

Like  a  ribbon  of  birds  fading  across  the  sky  — 

Your  motions  touching  —  evaporating  —  over  me  — 

Like  the  poignancy  of  invisible  flowers  through  evening  mists  — 

0    your  movements  are  absorbing  to  watch  — 

And  exhaling  a  vastly  fresh  perfume  — 

Like  moon-glossed  rushes  and  water-lilies  floating  —  wavering 

scarcely  — 
Along  the  dreaming  stir  of  the  tides. 


[15] 


XI 

AT  dawn  You  will  give  me  a  robe  wet  from  the  spring  of 

heaven 

For  keeping  me  refreshed  going  up  — 
Yet  maybe  it  will  be  cold  against  me  at  first  — 
Blown  around  by  those  sharp  slurring  winds 
Cutting  so  acutely  at  the  slender  thread  between  body  and 

soul  — 
During  half  lights  — 

0   maybe  I  shall  be  very  cold  until  the  sun  rising 
And  sucking  the  moisture  off  my  garment  into  roseate  smoke- 
wreaths  — 

Ere  the  risen  sun  swathing  in  flames  of  definite  glory 
My  celestial  mantle  — 

Yet  already  Your  eyes  pouring  shafts  of  insistent  beckoning 

light 

From  behind  the  rifted  fleece  of  storm-hurried  clouds  — 
Already  Your  voice  breathing  up  through  the  rhythmic  boom 

of  invisible  seas  — 
Already  benediction  drifting  down  towards  me  —  a  recessional 

choir  tone 

Through  the  groined  shadows  of  these  cathedral  trees  — 
And  all  this  drawing  me  invincibly  —  inexorably  —  after  — 
Your  eternal  passing  beyond. 


Yet  —  yet  —  let  me  rest  longer  among  these  great  candles 
Cataracting  their  wax  like  an  avalanche  of  leprous  bones  — 
[16] 


Among  these  subtle  glasses  blown  from  the  cold  honey-breath 

of  stars  — 

Among  these  rapture-tilted  angels  clawing  their  lutes 
In  passion-haunted  reverie  — 
Among  these  rare  velvets  that  are  like  sin  caught  naked  at 

sunrise  — 
That  are  like  the  twitching  blush  of  a  bride  under  her  gilded 

veil 
(At  the  horned  caress  of  some  unholy  thought.) 

Yet  —  yet  — let  me  rest  longer  — 

Near  my  love  coming  —  going  —  with  his  singing  limbs  — 
His  solicitous  leaning  over  me  — 

His  feather-gentle  etching  across  my  heart  with  flame  — 
His  abrupt  dimness  of  breathless  drawing  away  — 
Ere  the  dazzling  swim  of  our  blinded  gesture  towards  one  an 
other  — 

Ere  the  flooding  anguish  of  our  eyes  meeting  in  a  divine  tide 
Whispering  —  breaking    against    demand    for    release    from 
desire  — 

0    we  so  terribly  locked  —  yet  with  feet  growing  ever  more 

transparent 

In  this  black  swarm  of  receding  sensuous  necessity  — 
0   our  lips  already  bathed  in  a  staggering  vapour  of  bending 

clouds  — 

0   a  curious  chill  seeming  to  spray  our  blood 
Like  effusion  of  glittering  snow  silence  — 
And  all  of  these  phenomena  merely  chiming  Your  approach  — 

Your  advent  — 

And  down  Your  sturdy  stair  of  hyacinth  twilight-hued  — 
And  in  Your  wistful  robes  of  tenderest  invitation. 

Ah  who  could  deny  Your  pure  essence 
Beckoning  toward  the  gleam  of  a  rest  final  — 
[17] 


And  I  —  I  turning  swiftly  to  depart  from  my  love 

To  disentangle  me  from  the  minute  pressure  of  his  hands  — 

To  cut  my  glance  away  from  his  half  smile  flickering  up 

(Echoes  humming  from  summer  dreams  perhaps) 

But  my  love  is  so  fast  asleep 

Nor  can  I  depart  from  him  while  he  is  still  sleeping  — 

O   I  charge  You  tarry  a  little  for  me  until  he  wakens 

So  that  I  may  come  to  You  unharassed  — 

And  after  directing  the  widely-open  eyes  of  my  love 

Toward  that  point  where  I  shall  cease  to  adhere  — 

And  pass  —  acclaiming  in  the  lure  of  Your  upward  streak. 


[18] 


**O  through  what  unperceived  and  monster  doorway 

And  out  unto  the  airy  porticos  of  my  youth 

Could  there  have  stepped  a  shape  so  Titan  as  this  melancholy- 


XII 

THE  paths  of  my  spirit  are  darkened,  0  Lord. 

They  are  moiled  with  infernal  thunders  — 

They  are  drowned  in  poisonous  rains  — 

They  are  divided  and  turned  aside  from  a  veiled  centre  — 

Somewhere  was  a  white  bird  once 

And  singing  upon  a  golden  bough  — 

Nevertheless  have  I  lost  the  last  ray  from  its  glittering, 

Yea  even  have  I  mislaid  the  direction 

From  whence  came  its  shrill  sweet  voice  — 

The  ways  of  my  spirit  are  darkened,  0  Lord. 
The  clairvoyant  shadows  of  all  purpose  are  waylaid  —  mur 
dered  — 

In  these  iron  fists  of  numbness  — 
O   through  what  unperceived  and  monster  doorway 
And  out  unto  the  airy  porticos  of  my  youth  — 
Could  there  have  stepped  a  shape  so  Titan  as  this  melan 
choly  — 

Through  what  hideous  gash  at  the  sea's  limpid  base 
Could  there  have  swollen  up  such  raw  sinews  of  ice  — 
And  rending  the  belly  of  my  ship  — 

And  spilling  her  entrails  in  blotchy  tracks  through  the  water  — 
And  crunching  her  dancing  gallantry  of  masts 
Into  a  rusty  mess  of  spars  — 

Aye  directing  —  pushing  her  entire  bulk  of  wreckage 
Against  those  jagged  rotting  coasts  of  fruitlessness  —  decay  — 
Despair  —  horrible  —  animal  —  because  unclassified. 

The  ways  of  my  spirit  are  darkened,  0  Lord, 
And  my  loneliness  —  my  ignorance  crying  out 
[19] 


Like  a  child  who  is  being  struck  in  his  sleep  — 

And  just  when  he  was  commencing  to  dream  of  the  door 
opening 

Onto  blue  celestial  — 

(And  framing  those  entwined  figures  of  the  divine  fairy 
tale  -— ) 

Since  only  lately  measuring  the  twisted  slant  of  my  own  recum 
bent  spirit  — 

Since  only  lately  the  humility  —  clarity  —  of  self -knowing 

Kissing  back  those  austere  lashes  of  my  spirit 

Into  a  tender  sidelong  glancing  at  me  — 

And,  how  swiftly  —  greedily 

I  basked  in  the  shine  of  that  regard  — 

Unknowing  where  there  is  hurry  there  is  pretence  — 

Unknowing  the  manner  of  receiving  a  thing 

Changes  it  — 

Unknowing  there  are  myriad  convictions  of  right 

Rumours  of  peace  — 

That  can  suddenly  silence  —  like  a  sparrow's  singing  through 

thunder 
Along  this  devious  road  toward  invincible  rest  — 

This    road    so    continually    made  —  so    continually    washed 

away  — 

By  storm  floods  of  sand  rearing  —  showering  down  — 
By  winds  of  dust  and  ashes  erupting  — 
From  that  mysterious  desert  of  What  Has  Been. 

0  it  is  long  now  since  there  was  a  white  bird 

And  singing  upon  a  golden  bough  — 

For  the  paths  of  my  spirit  are  darkened,  0  Lord  — 

They  are  moiled  with  infernal  thunders  — 

They  are  drowned  in  poisonous  rains  — 

They  are  divided  and  turned  aside  from  a  veiled  centre. 

[20] 


XIII 

MY  life  flowing  out  into  new  channels  — 

0   I  feel  the  farewell  jar  of  the  old  wharves 

Against  the  sides  of  this  newly  launching  boat  — 

0    the  shock  of  these  listing  giving  wharves  thumping  my 

heart 

As  well  as  the  lithe  gleaming  flanks 
Of  this  vigorous  eager  ship  of  mine  — 
Faces  deeply  familiar  dimming  there  on  the  shore  — 
Never  mind  I  both  fear  —  desire  — 

They  shall  become  eternally  polished  —  distinct  —  arrested  — 
In  that  shattering  glare  of  memory  — 

0  my  ship  was  growing  for  a  long  time  — 
Builded  stalwart  and  curious  by  invisible  labor  — 

Nor  could  her  vast  swelling  lines  submit  any  longer  to  dry- 
dock— 

Nor  be  kept  from  flinging  out  their  robustness 

Across  the  undulant  body  of  the  sea  — 

Nor  her  gilded  beak  be  prevented  from  plunging  —  tangling 
deeply 

In  the  foam-mained  throat  of  the  storm  — 

And  now  standing  for  ever  inseparable  to  her  deck  — 
Watching  her  strike  at  the  shining  gums  of  the  sea  — 
To  be  spewed  back  again  — 
Upon  the  twisting  celestial-white  teeth  of  the  ocean  — 

1  —  becoming  so  close  interwoven  with  visible  wonders 
(Throbbing  salt  air 

[21] 


Vibrating  with  the  festive  shriek  of  sun-drunken  gulls  — 

Or  these  cloud  battalions  forming  into  monstrous  ramparts 

Thinning  into  recumbent  gods  — 

Shredding  out  into  children's  pin-wheels — ) 

That  somehow  the  invisible  blurring  into  gradual  plainness 

Like  a  sublime  dream  appearing 

From  around  those  abysmal  curvings  of  night  — 

Onto  the  plain  of  day. 


[22] 


XIV 

IT  is  Your  thirst  after  my  righteousness 

Calling  up  to  me  in  that  most  remote  tower  where  I  sit  — 

And  combing  out  my  hair  toward  the  rising  moon  — 

And  musing  upon  my  page  — 

Who  makes  answer  unto  my  glance  with  a  tightening  of  his 

fingers 
Across  the  harp  — 

0  it  is  Your  great  voice  small  with  a  yearning 

Rushing  up  —  ceasing  abruptly  —  and  at  the  very  folds  of  my 

silver  hangings 

Like  one  who  running  to  a  door  yet  hesitates  to  enter  — 
From  excessive  wish  — 

And  a  wanness  falling  between  me  and  my  page 

Through  which  the  burn  of  his  glance  is  put  out  — 

And  a  drooping  passing  over  these  banks  of  blue  delphinium 

Like  a  sudden  sheet  of  silence  falling  across  water  — 

0  illumined,  I  am  convinced  You  are  near  — 

0  already  Your  whispers  commencing  to  drop  in  eddies  of 
dazzle  about  me  — 

Infinite  —  golden  —  as  the  breeze-rippled  drifts  of  sun  and 
moon  shine 

Fencing  in  dazzling  chains  those  gentle  boundaries  of  para 
dise — 

0  already  Your  words  causing  an  aching  —  twitching  clamour 
in  my  heart  — 

[23] 


As  upon  regarding  some  infant's  hand  leaning  over  his  cradle 
And  clutching  the  air  at  dusk. 

0  You  say  —  make  way  for  yourself  to  follow  me 

For  I  have  need  of  your  following  — 

In  order  to  be  that  which  you  search  so  relentlessly  — 

But  in  all  things  beautiful  trembling  upon  the  edge  of  celestial 

adventure  are  You  — 

In  the  swaying  masts  of  outgoing  ships  at  dusk  — 
In    the   suddenly   loosened   peal    of   the   organ    shooting   up 

through  nave  —  vaults 
And  bringing  down  at  my  feet  a  quarry  of  scarlet-blue  sun 

motes  — 

From  the  rose-windows  high  —  beyond  — 
And  in  the  milk-pure  breath  of  the  morning  moist  over  the 

land  — 
0  above  all  in  the  clover  damp  breath  of  the  morning  beading 

the  earth 

And  I  aware  of  Your  beckoning  — 
And  of  Your  loosening  back  toward  my  oncoming  arms 
A  flock  of  doves  interpreters  of  rare  caresses  between  us  — 
For  a  while  —  only  for  a  while. 

0  indeed,  You  are  that  regard  inseparable  —  prophetic  of  me 

Wheref rom  I  am  refreshed  —  reminded 

Of  my  infinite  expansion  —  affiliation  with  all  — 

And  it  is  because  I  know  You  are  close  —  ever  closer  to  me  — • 

That  everything  shall  be  awarded  and  again  forsaken 

And  for  the  scent  of  your  shadow  — 

Drifting    back  —  reassuring  —  through    enormous    conflicting 

shades  — 

Shades  —  that  are  strung  a  wilful  ornament 
Upon  Your  invisible  Sword  of  Light  Eternal. 


[24] 


XV 

0  THE  setting  moonlight  is  floating  in  a  globe 

Across  this  wavering  lake-water  — 

It  is  like  a  chinese  lantern  — 

Poked  by  the  languid  fingers  of  a  ghost  — 

And  far  beyond  a  spray  of  moonlight  —  wreathing  the  water 

And  that  is  like  scintillant  rifts 

Commencing  in  some  sky  — 

About  to  be  furled  completely  backward  and  away  ~ 

Before  the  blazing  Advent 

Of  a  Promised  God. 


[25] 


XVI 

0  MY  spirit,  longing  for  that  moment 

When  the  songs  of  the  flesh  are  subdued  eternally  — 

My  spirit  straining  after  the  dawn  — 

After  those  pale  tapering  fingers 

Aslant  and  beckoning  in  the  sky 

And  suggesting  a  hand  —  prodigal  of  star-runged  ladders  — 

0  my  fragile  spirit,  stretching  —  yearning 

Towards  this  luminous  gash  spreading  among  the  cloud-banks 

(Just  as  in   autumn  young  birds  shuddering  —  lifting  their 

wings  — 

Toward  an  orange  flare  of  southern  gardens  — ) 
Aye,  I  am  weary — weary  of  this  bronze  berry-pelted  carnival 

of  health  —  youth  — 

Through  which  my  spirit  so  incessantly  wandering  — 
And  for  ever  clipping  those  purple  shadows  — 
Quilting  my  amorous  exuberance  — 
With  a  sudden  downfall  of  disturbing  azure  light. 


[26] 


XVII 

TO  WALT  WHITMAN 

Do  you  stand  by  me,  0  my  brother  — 

Educating  beyond  impatience  insolence  or  violence 

Toward  the  multitude, — 

So  far  from  —  but  ever  straining  after  winged  heels  — 

Do  you  impale  within  my  tongue 

Those  dagger  flutes  cutting  melodiously 

Towards  the  soul's  most  vivid  source  — 

Through  which  the  unslaked  night  — 

The  dawn  deflowering  towards  sunrise  — 

And  the  replete  noon  then  pouring  themselves  completely  out. 

0  let  no  shyest  attitude  of  remote  flower 

Fail  to  reflect  a  beautiful  future  through  me  — 

Nor  any  murmuring  glance  of  men 

Leave  me  unshivered  with  responsive  song  — 

For  who  leaning 

.Across  the  toe  mark  of  the  race's  end  — 

With  pliant  arms  flung  out  toward  those  darting  arrivals 

(Momentarily  so  exhausted  from  whispers 

Scorching  —  exigent  —  revelatory  —  of  passionate  truth  — ) 

If  not  ourselves,  0  my  brother  — 

Nor  who  yearning  —  moving  —  out  from  their  stars  — 

And  down  those  cryptic  shimmering  stairs 

[27] 


Bloom  bannistered  — 

With  hosanna  and  blessing  of  petals 

And  still  down  into  that  smouldering  hush  — 

Consuming  depression  — 

Of  the  eternal  night  valleys 

(And  for  searching  after  those  of  their  kind) 

If  not  ourselves,  0  my  brother  — 

We  so  excellently  knowing  how  dreams  may  flutter  away 
From   hands   gnawed   too   stark   by  the  fangs   of  imaginary 

isolation  — 

Nor  how  deadly  cold  becoming  a  man 
Left  amidst  the  sudden  silence  of  his  brain  — 
(Aye  no  more  than  a  scarecrow  form 
Turning  rapidly  shadow  upon  the  waning  moon-crescent  — ) 

And  we  —  we  only  —  with  ever  sufficient  vigor 

For  beating  the  sunlight  from  our  wings 

Behind  such  fearfully  brooding  brows  — 

And  we  —  we  only  — 

With  voices  sufficiently  vigorous  to  penetrate  —  suffuse  — 

And  with  clean-heard  proclamation  —  announcing  — 

That  out  of  perpetual  labour  alone  — 

Arriving  that  joy  invulnerable 

Which  asks  of  futurity  no  hostage. 


[28] 


XVIII 

0  DO  not  speak  to  me  in  the  half  voice  of  poetry 

For  Your  sonority  ringing  out  only  thinly  through  poetry 

And  like  an  organ  pealing  under  tides  — 

And  like  some  litany  recited  in  a  sublime  voice  — 

From  far  behind  the  choir  stalls 

Deep  within  sanctuary. 

0  do  not  speak  to  me  in  the  half  tones  of  music  — 

For    only    sad   spirits   stretching   up   their   misty   lengths   in 

music  — 
And  from  out  those  shadow-locked  seas  of  my  innumerable 

endings  — 

And  so  garlanding  in  extremest  melancholy 
My  already  drooping  head. 

0  speak  to  me  in  prayer  — 

Speak  to  me  rather  in  a  prayer  — 

A  prayer  fusing  those  rhapsodies  of  my  heart 

Into  rocketing  phrases  — 

Phrases  that  are  like  eagles  —  spiral  —  fleet 

Pecking  upon  the  tracks 

Of  Your  sun-stained  heels. 

0  let  a  prayer  shoot  up 

Like  a  rocket  of  lilies  sheathed  in  golden  fire  — 

And  bursting  a  puff  of  rippling  petals  — 

And  thus  a  mantle  of  supreme  perfume  cast  down  before 

You  — 
[29] 


And  You  turning  —  mollified  at  last  into  sublime  condescen 
sion 
Toward  my  hot  clamouring  eyes  — 

Since  almost  am  I  beyond  loneliness  —  0  Inner  Voice  — 
And  already  a  pity  —  a  humour  hammering  —  caressing  my 

heart 

Demanding  for  a  love  to  come  out  of  it  — 
Giving  —  giving  —  beyond  returns  —  beyond  loss  of  hope. 

0  I  wonder,  Inner  Voice  — 

Shall  it  be  long  now  ere  your  outline 

Eternally  blanching  my  shadow  along  this  dusty  road  — 

Ere  the  sense  and  heavenly  jar  of  you  against  me  — 

Ere  your  lashes  sweeping  my  cheek  — 

And  of  your  grave  voice  whispering  to  me  higher  —  higher  — 

Until  swelling  out  of  my  art  entirely  — 

And  into  a  vast  draught  of  sound 

Blowing  out  from  the  blue-white  open  door 

Of  paradise. 


[30] 


XIX 

WHO  could  be  near  to  me 

As  this  something  I  need  so  sharply 

During  those  long  hours  before  dawn  — 

I  have  laid  aside  my  book  — 

And  reverie  is  smoothing  back  my  hair 

With  her  mist-scented  fingers  — 

And  her  mysterious  look 

Is  clutching  my  eyes  aloft  toward  her  glance  —  infinite  — 

Vaulted  with  a  million  inscriptions  of  memory  — 

Yet  I  gaze  profoundly  without  discovering 
This  clarity  I  am  searching  — 

It  is  not  love  since  a  lover  is  satisfied  at  best 
In  finding  lyric  names  for  his  appetites  — 
And  worst  of  all  in  falling  asleep  before  laughing  over  him 
self. 


It  is  not  oblivion 

For  after  oblivion  I  am  oppressed  with  a  sense 

Of  having  neglected  pain  — 

Pain  —  then  surely  sending  lethargy  to  waken  me  up 

And  stare  at  me  out  of  her  waxen  lids  — 

And  suffocate  me  with  the  maul 

Of  her  glutenous  unkempt  hands  — 

[31] 


Nor  is  it  madness  —  for  madness  reversing  me  all  too  soon 
Out  from  her  conch  of  wine-soaked  roses  — 

Yet     somewhere    near  —  unmistakably  —  are     waterfalls     of 

music  — 

Disgorging  a  fresh  and  solemn  wildness  through  the  air  — 
And  somewhere  near  —  unmistakably  — 
A  blistering  splendour  of  intensely  flying  robes  — 

0  I  am  insatiably  lonely  for  This  Presence 

Just  ahead  of  me  — 

0  I  long  to  come  nearer  to  this  Upholder 

Unfurling  the  standard  of  my  very  breath  — 

To  this  Bearer  of  my  future  resemblance 

Turning  back  rarely  —  suddenly  —  and  whitewashing  my  eyes 

With  illumination  — 

With  a  radiance  throwing  completely  into  shadow  at  last  — 

That  prowling  lamp  of  my  vast  weariness  — 

0  indeed  I  am  insatiably  lonely  for  This  Presence 
Just  ahead  of  me  — 

O  indeed  I  long  to  come  nearer  to  this  Upholder 
Unfurling  the  standard  of  my  very  breath. 


[32] 


EMOTIONAL 


I  HAVE  asked  of  you 

An  almost  invisible  touch  upon  our  mortal  lives  — 

And  the  comrade's  eyes  turned  —  wistful  —  humorous  — 

Along  with  mine  unto  the  sky  — 

And  back  again  to  our  dilemma  of  passions  — 

I  have  asked  of  you 

To  revel  with  me  in  solitude  so  that  returning  from  widely 
apart  directions 

We  meet  smiling  —  recounting  at  will  our  adventures  of  alone- 
ness — 

0  transcending  without  losing  passion  — 

Is  indeed  to  be  the  singer  and  he  who  listens  in  one  — 

Therefore  I  have  asked  of  you 

To  step  out  and  away  with  me  from  repeating  the  history  of 
love 

So  dignifying  —  placing  ourselves  —  in  a  new  chapter. 


[35] 


II 

TO  CLAUDE  DEBUSSY'S  LA  GROTTE 

YOUR  song 

As  the  hale  of  mysterious  exotic  intention 

Drifting  in  palpitating  echoes 

O'er  the  pallid  oval 

Of  night-closed  flowers  — 

Your  song 

As  the  increasing  shimmer 
Of  some  exquisite  nearness  — 
Clad  in  those  steel-dark  foils 
Of  sinister  fancy  — 

And  once  more  your  song 

As  the  moaning  hush  of  a  human  soul 

Receding  —  from  the  Divine  Moment. 


[36] 


Ill 

0    THE  cool  fragrant  breathing  of  this  night 
Savouring  my  breast  - — 

And  becoming  the  caress  of  my  bridegroom's 
Ivory  and  scented  fingers  — 

0  the  moon's  blue  veined  oval 
Remote  —  melancholy  — 
Even  as  my  lover's  so  delicate  face 
Dreaming  —  half  turned  away  — 

0   these  wavering  blades  of  moonlight 

Whipping  out  their  pallid  brilliance 

From  scabbards  of  the  breeze  — 

They  are  like  the  scintillant  attenuate  limbs  of  my  lover 

Flashing  upon  me. 


[37] 


IV 


YOUR  face  —  so  beautiful  — 

And  all  celestial  arias 

Rising  —  humming  throughout  me  — 

And  like  some  mist  of  harping  angels 

Upon  regarding  you  — 

Your  limbs  —  so  beautiful  — 

The  muscular  uncoiling  of  a  snake  — 

The  drawn-back  gums  —  the  spring  of  rending  frenzy 

Aye  the  tormented  postures  of  inordinate  demand 

Are  about  them  — 

Your  hands  so  curiously  marvellous 

They  are  languid  —  brutal  — 

Yet  tentative  with  wonder  —  with  worship  — 

As  the  hands  of  a  young  child 

While  timidly  parting  back  those  rainbow  curtains  — 

Between  himself  and  fairyland. 


[38] 


THEY  say  he  is  dead  who  is  my  beloved  — 
Yet  I  know  he  has  need  of  his  rest  only  — 
And  that  his  wakening  glory 
Shall  tear  my  lashes  wide  with  obeisant  hail 
And  through  innumerable  epoch  — 

But  I  am  desolate  —  0   I  am  desolate  — 
Who  am  not  yet  near  enough  to  death 
To  be  enthralled  by  its  splendour  — 
Nor  likely  to  find  any  footpath  toward  life 
Through  such  wreckage  of  weeping  — 

For  they  say  he  is  dead  who  is  my  beloved  — 

Yet  I  know  he  searches  a  dream  for  strength 

To  stir  —  waken  —  and  springing  from  his  couch 

So  meet  my  attendance  among  those  carven  shadows 

Of  the  endless  gates  — 

For  I  am  my  beloved's  of  yesterday  —  of  to-morrow  • 

But  to-day  is  a  rusty  door  I  cannot  shake  open  — 

0   my  grief  and  I  are  strangers  yet 

Too  unfamiliar  for  perpetual  gazing  — 

Nor  aware  of  each  other 

Save  through  sudden  furtive  stabs  of  sore  — 

0  my  sorrow  exactly  like  an  abrupt  series  of  shrieks 

Reverberating  through  nightmare  — 

And  awakening  into  a  more  terrible  reality  — 

For  they  say  he  is  dead  who  is  my  beloved  — 
Yet  I  know  he  is  only  nimbly  renewing  himself  — 
And  in  order  to  stride  more  vigorously  a  radiance 
[39] 


Rearing  across  countless  horizons  — 
And  sweeping  him  in  galloping  majesty 
Toward  my  eternal  surrender  — 

So  let  me  approach  swiftly  unto  my  love 

Yearning  down  toward  him  — 

And  flushing  his  ivory  mask  with  vivid  whispers 

Concerning  our  future  tryst  — 

And  fingering  his  gentle  hair 

So  soft  —  so  limp  —  as  the  pinions 

Of  a  wounded  hird  — 

And  smoothing  my  cheek  along  his  breathless  breast 

Toward  appointing  with  his  heart 

Our  bridal  hour  — 

And  cease  lathering  the  air  with  sighs 

Around  this  stone  laced  couch 

Where  my  chiselled  young  love  sleeps  so  beautifully  — 

For  I  would  listen  to  the  tale  of  his  ascension  — 

Descending  frigidly  toward  me  — 

Through  those  vaporous  beam-raining  meadows  between  us 

0   I  would  hear  how  the  stars  look  now  so  near 

And  sparkling  down  toward  his  hand  — 

As  a  necklace  of  rockets  may  be  — 

And  of  how  the  seas  seem  caught  to  the  earth  — 

Perhaps  like  pallid  drops  glittering  upon  a  leaf  — 

And  more  than  all,  if  my  name  beats  around  him 

As  a  tumult  of  wings  — 

Above  —  in  that  silence  beyond  the  winds  — 

For  you  say  he  is  dead  who  is  my  beloved  — 

But  I  tell  you  what  is  loved  in  the  soul  may  only  increase 

And  death  but  a  cup  of  water  along  carnal  roads 

Restoring  —  reanimate  — 

Toward  a  more  perfect  competence — for  deeper  reunion. 

[40] 


VI 

You  two  —  loving  me  —  tending  me  — 

And  leaning  toward  one  another  — 

And  across  my  sick-bed  at  twilight  — 

United  in  j  oy  for  my  various  recovery  — 

0   I  feel  in  this  certain  hour  — 

Through  this  blue  surge  of  retreating  light  — 

Your  two  figures  to  be  caught  and  also  retreating  — 

That  your  dimming  faces  — 

Your  contours  fingered  —  covered  —  by  the  ascending  dusk 

To  be  expressing  some  omen  of  vast  change  assuming  between 

us  — 

On  this  certain  night  —  beneath  the  smooth  hum  of  evening  — 
And  despite  the  tranquil  lighting  of  our  house. 


[41] 


VII 

MY  foot  is  often  started  upon  the  mountain  — 

In  that  pungent  pine-tangle  at  the  base  of  the  mountain  — 

With  the  damp  breath  of  wild  fern  and  spice  of  laurel 

Exhaling  over  me  — 

With  a  gleam  from  the  heights  trickling  down  through  the 

branches 
Pertinent  —  transparent  —  urging  —  elating  me  — 

When  suddenly  the  flutter  of  wings  — 

0  you  come  to  me  on  wings  —  there  is  the  insidious  part  — 

And  your  clutch  hovering  abruptly  over  me  sheathed  in 
fleece  — 

That  is  your  disarming  side  — 

And  your  eyes  fastening  upon  mine  with  that  depth  of  ques 
tioning 

That  is  spiritually  extraneous  — 

So  holding  us  for  ever  strangers  — 

Then  a  hunger  rising  between  us  never  to.  be  satisfied  —  I 

think  — 

Until  we  can  turn  away  — 

Then  blasphemy  granting  some  strange  vitality  to  each  — 
And  a  brief  madness  behaving  so  like  joy  — 
When  relief  arriving  conspicuously  without  peace  — 
And  somehow  like  a  wan  grief -stricken  face 
We  have  insulted  — 
[42] 


Yet  these  questions  for  ever  continuing  beyond  response  of 

passion  or  relief  — 

0   is  it  not  our  souls  asking  of  one  another  — 
When  shall  there  be  a  loosening  —  a  parting  between  us  — 
And  a  lifting  up  toward  that  divine  convergence  — 
Where  possession  ceases  to  torture 
Since  all  is  shared  by  all. 


[43] 


VIII 

0  OUR  love  is  a  moist  white  gleaming  — 

As  the  limbs  of  fountainal  figures 

That  are  laved  by  the  intermingling  of  moonlight  and  water  — 

0   our  love  has  a  foaming  stem  of  wan  effulgent  perfume  — 
That  is  like  those  heavy  wet  stalks  of  marsh-grown  orchids  — 

0   our  love  spreading  a  deadly  coolness  along  our  lips  — 
Just  as  perfume  from  the  stamen  of  a  certain  orchid 
Reminding  —  warning  the  traveller  and  suddenly  — 
That  he  is  in  a  place  of  death  — 

0   our  love  has  hair  like  a  shower  of  coins  — 

Heels  the  wind  follows  — 

And  a  face  eternally  oval  —  running  the  scale  of  aspect. 

Since  now  diademed  in  joy  — 
Now  trailing  into  that  ashen  yawn  of  dissolution  — 
Now  brightening  under  the  glaze  of  reassurance  — 
Benediction  —  long-sought  — 

And  again  our  love  has  those  little  clutching  hands  of  for 
gotten  children  — 
In  dark  wind-swept  rooms. 


[44] 


IX 

TO  MY  MUSE 

THE  worst  loneliness 

When  your  oracular  voice 

Drawing  no  patterns  in  the  wind  — 

Nor  stringing  into  pertinent  fanfares 

The  trumpetings  of  sunlight  — 

Nor  sighing  up  joyously 

Through  some  crescendo  of  passionate  desire  — 

Nay  between  me  and  life  nothing  whatever  in  common 

Save  when  you  —  stirring  my  reactions  with  sparkling  hints 

Interpret  the  invisible  — 

So  causing  me  to  effervesce  into  expression 

Momentarily  bringing  events  parallel  — 

With  fancy. 


[45] 


I  WISH  you  well  —  I  wish  you  well  — 

Dear  once-beloved  — 

I  have  hewn  myself  apart  from  you 

Wounding  you  unto  death  where  you  stood  there 

Smiling  —  unsuspecting  — 

Yet  you  cannot  think  how  blasted  my  hand 

From  hurling  the  spear  — 

Nor  how  blinded  my  eyes 

From  tearing  back  the  curtain  before  yours  — 

0   your  pain  from  me  sinking  down  and  out  of  you 

And  falling  away  — 

Like  mist  ribbons  unchaining  the  morning  — 

But  I  shall  not  be  there  to  slur  my  ache 

In  the  lull  and  limpidness  fanning  invisibly  back 

Shadows  before  light  — 


[46] 


Nor  freshen  —  reassure  —  straighten  myself  again  — 
In  that  ever  further  prevailing  brightness  — 

Since  for  ever  I  shall  see  the  descending  blow  — 

With  something  tolling  frantically 

About  your  height  springing  up  to  meet  me  — 

Since  eternally  I  shall  perceive  the  swaying  —  tottering 

Of  something  in  your  eyes  — 

And  crashing  —  filling  across  your  familiar  features  of  anguish 

In  gulfs  —  in  streaks  of  leaden  pour  — 

Of  agony  bubbling  hotly  —  gathering  in  clots  along  your  dear 

face  — 

And  lividly  brightening  —  accentuating  your  likeness  — 
Somehow  like  a  man  seen  to  be  panting  out  his  life 
In  a  column  of  flame  — 

0  once  beloved,  this  grief  — 

That  I  have  hammered  so  pitilessly  in 

Through  the  tender  white  skin  of  your  temples  — 

It  will  haunt  me  for  ever  — 

And  as  a  child  moaning  out  in  the  snow 

After  my  retreating  steps  — 

And  as  the  dim  sound  of  hands  listlessly  falling  apart  — 

Exhausted  from  pleading  —  toward  my  averted  eyes. 


[47] 


XI 

DURING  the  night-tide  my  departed  love  illumining  beside  me 
And  his  words  like  the  hiss  of  approaching  flood 
Across  droughted  places  — 

And  his  embrace  washing  my  fatigue 

As  a  draught  of  orchard  perfume 

Stealing  through  dishevelled  city  curvage  — 

0  the  splendour  of  his  dream-felt  touch 
Sweeping  me  with  fanfare  of  rainbows  — 
0  the  splendour  of  our  contact  irradiating  me 
With  arpeggios  of  colour  — 

As  my  love  so  delicately  erasing  my  tears 

With  the  plumed  sweep  of  his  caressing  lash  — 

As  my  love  so  tenderly  dwelling  against  me 

And  praying  over  our  inseparable  future  — 

Until  amongst  those  flashing  corners  of  his  winged  mouth 

My  sorrow  drowning  for  ever. 


[48] 


XII 

NEURASTHENIA 

EVEN  through  these  chaotic  fumes  lit  —  fed  — 

By  hours  spent  reversing  from  affinity  — 

Even  through  this  tepid  catastrophic  blur 

Brewed  from  continual  insincerity  — 

Aye,  despite  the  grinding  gash  of  scruples 

Exploding  inversely  to  the  fore  — 

Despite  the  bleating  din  of  appalling  infirmities  arraigned 

Against  the  inquisitorial  frown  of  ascending  conscience  — 

Aye,  despite  all  this  am  I  aware  of  a  cherished  voice  whispering 

That  joy  —  joy  — 

Shall  be  for  ever  enclosing  —  sustaining  —  producing  me  — 

Out  of  her  mystic  heart. 


[49] 


XIII 

THOSE  times  when  all  affections  becoming  too  pressing  — 

All  rooms  too  stifling  — 

And  each  obligation  crushing  further 

Beneath  disordered  lassitude  — 

Ah  then  the  mellow  invitation  of  lonely  roads  — 

So  inflated  by  endless  currents  of  reviving  freshness  — 

Ah  then  the  mauve-blue  tidal  wrap  of  twilight  — 

Descendant  —  beckoning  — 

From  across  those  collapsing  shoulders  of  a  weary  day  — 

And  then  throughout  this  delicate  relaxing  silence  — 

Assurance  —  permeating  —  incontestable  —  as   the   spread   of 

dawn  — 

Reassurance  that  in  all  life  a  future  — 
Continually  developing  in  beauty  and  toward  beginnings 
Forever  more  sublime. 


[50] 


XIV 

THAT  I  should  call  from  you 

The  thirst  unquenchable  — 

Loosening  between  us  a  secret 

To  be  eternally  approached  —  touched  — 

Yet  receded  from  unknown  — 

And  after  all  familiarities  — 

Since  forever  from  me  toward  you 

A  coquetry  beckoning  —  alluring  —  leading  you  — 

And  as  the  beautiful  walking  —  just  ahead  — 

Of  some  strange  figure  through  semi-darkness  — 

Imbuing  you  —  pensive  pursuer 

With  accruing  tenderness  —  sadness  of  desire  — 

0  indeed  I  will  hide  forever  from  you,  my  beloved, 

And  in  a  smile  glittering  up  from  this  absorbing  mystery 

That  I  am  to  myself. 


[51] 


XV 

ASCENDANT  upon  the  mountain  with  a  lighted  candle 

Just  before  dawn 

Since  I  had  heard  the  sluring  roar  of  Your  voice 

(Afar  —  yet  indubitably  toward  me — ) 

And  the  push  of  Your  vast  descendant  draperies  — 

(Like  an  avalanche  sounding  momentously  different 

Above  racketing  glacier  streams  — ) 

Since  drops  of  scent  from  Your  fingers 

Had  already  feathered  across  me  in  a  snow-lifting  breeze  — 

Together  with  complete  assurance  of  Your  Presence  drifting 

out 

In  a  current  of  blinding  refreshment  — 
From  the  heart  of  adjacent  pine-woods  — 

Then  —  I  —  pricked  with  intrepid  vigour  — 
With  desire  for  pressing  upward  — 
For  sitting  in  the  blue-white  shadow  of  Your  wings  — 
For  reading  by  the  light  of  my  own  candle 
In  this  "  Book  of  Why  "  spread  widely  open  upon  Your  mas 
sive  knees  — 

For  reading  —  while  below 

From  the  very  centre  of  dawn's  smoking  uncoiling  limbs  — 

Recumbent      darkness     forming  —  rearing  —  straightening  — 

clarifying 

Into  transparent  patches  —  golden-barred  — 
[52] 


And  these  —  awakening  cities  — 

(Strung  along  —  spangling  the  shore  as  a  necklace  of  rain 
bows-—) 

For  reading  —  while  the  night  glazing  off  into  distance 
Until  merely  a  pin-prick  scratching  the  horizon  with  smoke  — 
While  from  below  a  muffled  stir  of  wakening  birds  —  children 

—  flowers  — 

And  of  their  sweet  exhalations  of  rest 
Dampening  into  golden  perfume  inquisitive  sun-bars  — 

For  reading  till  deriving  a  comfort  to  spread 

Over  these  wailing  storming  seas  beneath  daily  thorough 
fare — 

So  bearing  away  perchance  some  device  for  enduring  hour 
upon  hour 

When  no  glorious  conviction  appearing  unannounced 

Across  the  dim  portals  of  reverie  — 

Well  I  was  ascending  toward  all  this 

When  abruptly  you  were  there 

With  your  pallid  darkness 

And  glittering  about  you  of  an  ailing  light  — 

0  your  touch  upon  my  hand  was  subtle  with  entreaty  — 

You  bent  over  running  your  mouth 

Throughout  my  hair 

Your  kisses  wove  around  my  head  a  web 

Entangling  —  crushing  —  blurring  away  from  me 

The  transparent  beckoning  of  my  shrine  — 

Ah  then  —  then  —  a  grotesque  curtain  fell  between  me  —  my 

temple  — 

The  archaic  flute  played  —  to  the  patter  of  hoofs  — 
The  air  was  a  shower  of  scarves  flung  aside 
[53] 


With  sobbing  whining  savage  gesture  — 

Until  flower-sprayed  grasses  grew  suddenly  bruised  — 

0  it  is  late  —  it  is  late  now 

The  rain  is  pouring  heavily  downward 

The  rain  has  extinguished  my  candle  — 

0  in  this  weight  of  wet  darkness  — 

In  this  gloom  heavy  as  the  upturned  tear-soaked  earth 
Of  every  tomb  fresh-made  — 

1  feel  that  You  have  closed  Your  Book  and  risen  up — be 

yond — 

To  greet  those  ardent  ones 
Leaning  out  —  awaiting  You  — 
Along  the  star-foaming  tracks  of  higher  spheres. 


[54] 


XVI 


MY  thoughts  of  you  a  hand 

Stealing  across  yours 

No  matter  where  you  shall  go  — 

My  thoughts  of  you  evoking  in  you 

An  haunting  sense  of  resemblance 

Between  me  and  whatever  you  shall  see  — 

My  thoughts  of  you 

Bursting  the  moon-locked  surface 

Of  your  stillest  dream  — 

And  figured  in  shrill  carnival  laughter 

And  moving  grotesquely  forward 

Through  a  seething  flare  of  balloons 

And  to  where  you  standing  — 

Wearily  straining  yourself  remote 

From  all  possible  ties  — 

Then  my  thoughts  of  you  pressing  upon  your  mouth 

Your  evasive  —  flippant  —  tragic  mouth 

A  kiss  —  sharp  —  evanescent  — 

And  drawing  you  for  ever  after  its  insinuation 

That  you  should  know  yourself  further  — 

Upon  tasting  it  again. 


[55] 


XVII 

0  COMRADE,  in  that  strange  illicit  dialogue 
Of  our  perfectly  matched  fancy  — 
0  my  comrade,  in  that  eager  dual  spurt  upward 
Through  the  liquid  pearl  air  of  the  dawn  • — 
Upward  —  and  hard  upon  those  violet  tracks 
Of  the  Divine  Evasion  — 

0  it  is  rare  —  terrible  —  to  have  once  greeted  anything 

So  poignantly  akin  to  me  as  you  are  — 

To  have  hailed  one  standing  so  intensely  out  from  the  rest  — 

And  with  a  shock  of  such  appalling  familiarity  about  him  — 

0  your  appearance  like  a  shaft  of  lightning 

Framing  the  exact  reverse  likeness  of  my  own  accumulating 

image  — 

(And  against  the  slow-limbed  thick-featured  drifting  past 
Of  the  half-awakened  world-children  — ) 
0  your  face  like  a  torch  flashing  the  myriad  interiors  of  my 

past  — 
Showing  the  innumerable  actualities  of  you  and  me  between 

deaths  — 

And  ere  the  loss  of  great  memories 
Filled  us  with  gathering  inexplicable  sadness  — 

0  it  is  rare  -«—  terrible  —  to  have  once  greeted  anything 

So  poignantly  akin  to  me  as  you  are  — 

You  with  that  bewildering  tragic  beauty 

Of  a  blasphemously  impatient  spiritual  yearning  — 

[56] 


You  —  with  that  childish  drooping  at  the  corners 

Of  your  transparent  lovely  mouth  — 

And  with  your  frown  distorting  —  conflicting  — 

Most  eloquently  expressing  through  your  eyes 

The  frantic  upward  clamouring  tangle  of  your  mind  — 

And  again  with  your  slender  boyish  body 
Fountaining  a  jet  of  gracious  curves  at  every  motion  — 
0    glancing  at  you  loosens  me  completely  unto  myself  — 
0   your  beauties  strike  me  with  an  alertness 
Separating  —  classifying  —  making  order  —  form  — 
From  the  variously  straining  erupting  angles  of  my  own  sub 
lime  vitality  — 

0  comrade,  in  that  strange  illicit  dialogue 
Of  our  perfectly  matched  fancy  — 
O  my  comrade,  in  that  eager  dual  spurt  upward 
Through  the  liquid  pearl  air  of  the  dawn  — 
Upward  —  and  hard  upon  those  violet  tracks 
Of  the  Divine  Evasion. 


[57] 


XVIII 

LEAN  your  mouth  well  over  into  the  moonlight 

So  that  I  may  kiss  it  full,  0  chance  — 

Press  me  into  your  pungent  arms 

So  jagged  with  nightmare  —  so  rent  with  spasmodic  glories  — 

So  pliant  with  momentary  relaxing  — 

0  your  arms  so  compact  with  variety  — 

For  now  strident  with  triton  freshness 

And  glossed  as  if  by  spray  shaken  off  a  burst  of  godliness 

Out  of  glacier  streams  — 

And  now  slippery  —  darkened  with  that  moulten  calm 

Preceding  some  sinister  extase  — 

0  chance  —  stinging  —  refreshing 

Like  a  sudden  rain  of  flowers  across  my  being  that  is  ever  held 

So  deliberately  accessible  — 

0  chance  teasing  with  evasive  glimpses  of  some  further  road 

Ever  lightening  towards  breathless  eventualities  — 

Aye,  for  ever  alternately  veiling  —  disclosing  — 

That  face  approximate  of  Heaven  —  and  hell. 


[58] 


XIX 

I  AM  resting  by  the  edge  of  the  sea  — 

But  in  my  arm  is  a  curve  imperceptible 

For  the  weight  of  your  head  —  lover  —  comrade  — 

My  feet  are  damp  with  the  vigorous  jet  of  the  sea  — 

My  body  is  splashed  in  a  sudden  pour  of  sunlight 

Spreading  down  now  in  widening  —  blazing  torrents  — 

From  behind  the  pushed-away  clouds  • — 

Yet  I  long  to  be  chilled  —  warmed  —  and  surpassing  these 

And  by  our  limbs  co-mingling  lover  —  comrade. 


[59] 


XX 

I  DO  not  care  for  the  future  —  • 

Knowing  well  my  capacities  to  deal  with  it 

Are  breeding  up  from  the  fulness  of  my  response 

To  this  single  hour  — 

Therefore  do  not  ask  of  me  the  future  —  beloved  — 

And  rather  let  us  hold  gently  to  one  another  — 

Courting  —  inviting  ease  — 

And  sending  one  another  away  benignantly  refreshed  — 

Proud  —  befriended  with  the  memory  of  an  eternal  moment. 


[60] 


XXI 

How  cruel  those  steps  pausing  at  the  door  —  passing  onward  — 

When  one  is  waiting  — 

How  like  knife  thrusts  those  ordinary  domestic  sounds 

Through  which  a  listening  concentrates  in  vain  — 

How  often  going  to  the  window  —  back  again  —  at  the  slightest 

excuse  — 

As  if  motion  could  evoke  a  coming  — 
Then  gradually  the  soul  becoming  mortally  wounded 
And  by  strokes  of  the  clock  — 
Irretrievably  widening  a   distance  —  between   one's  self   and 

hope. 


[61] 


XXII 

THOU  art  oppressed,  0  my  soul  — 

In  the  chill  sweet  air 

Among  the  blurred  grey  grasses  — 

Aye  standing  in  the  golden  pour  of  sunrise  —  even 

Thou  art  oppressed  — 

For  the  present  is  a  cluttered  maelstrom  of  yesterday  —  to 
morrow  — 

And  tomorrow  a  vapid  frost  of  rigid  impasse  — 
And  yesterday  a  swim  of  troubled  things 
Fatal  during  some  unnoticed  moment  — 
0   from  where  erupting  this  army  of  agonies 
At  whose  outposts  already  thou  art  slain,  0  my  soul  — 
Slain  in  such  earliness  —  in  such  bright  cool  air  smoking  yet 
With  the  deep-shaded  perfume  of  night  — 

0   my  love  was  a  child  —  and  mad  —  and  he  rent  apart  our 
off -shoot  — 


[62] 


Our  issue  —  so  fair  and  grave  with  a  mounting  future  — 

So  gentle  from  memory  — 

And  so  vastly  akin  to  the  moment  as  all  youth  is  — 

And  perceiving  this  to  happen  during  inconsolable  length  — 

I  slanted  insensible  toward  numbness  — 

0    indeed    some  dim  weight  has  fallen  across  my  innermost 

spring 

And  my  eyes  are  sealed  in  sleep  — 
In  a  sleep  concealing  no  further  dream. 

"  Out  of  the  day  and  night 
A  joy  has  taken  flight; 

Fresh  spring,  and  summer,  and  winter  hoar, 
Move  my  faint  heart  with  grief,  but  with  delight 
No  more  — 0,  never  more!  " 

(From  Shelley's  "  Lament:') 


[63] 


XXIII 

ANOTHER  sun  —  another   sky  —  another  earth   out  of   other 

tides  — 

And  we  certainly  quickening  toward  one  another  again  — 
And  once  more  the  "  Why  "  lost  of  myriad  sighs  —  tears  — 
During  ensuing  search  of  each  other  — 
And  surely  a  vast  pathos  left  over  from  this  time 
Invisibly  striking  us  — 

Like  a  harp  sounding  from  some  haunted  room  — 
And  as  now  so  then  —  justice  co-ordinate  —  all-pervading  — 
Minutely  —  spherically  at  work  — 
Inexorably  sucking  out  the  pattern 
From  what  is  drawn  underneath. 


But  now  your  figure  is  walking  off  there  into  the  vast  night 
With  pain  —  age  —  death  ahead  of  you  —  of  you  so  familiar 

to  me 
Who  am  nevertheless  debarred  from  sharing  these  things  with 

you  — 

0  how  will  contrast  be  sustained 
Between  orchards  dusting  the  inclining  spring  sky 
With  their  pink  foam  — 
And  my  threadbare  shivering  past  — 

Between  music  rippling  out  across  the  shoulders  of  dancers 
Reaching  —  inviting  my  excluded  feet 
0  brightening  into  luminous  shame 
The  silence  of  my  jaded  instep  — 
[64] 


Or  when  —  or  when  —  upon  reading  some  loveliness  beside 

the  fire 

I  look  up  already  speaking  —  into  your  empty  chair  — 
0  for  another  sun  — another  sky  —  another  earth  out  of  other 

tides. 


[65] 


XXIV 

SAD,  we  must  find  each  other  —  ourselves  —  life  —  out 

Through  this  impediment  of  love  — 

(With  its  billion  toe-stubbings  along  the  Olympian  track.) 

Pathetic  we  must  exercise  by  falling  out  of  the  sky 
And  chasing  our  own  tails  for  awhile  — 
Instead  of  feeling  our  manes  tearing  out  behind  us 
Along  those  freezing  spiral  vapours  of  The  Continuous  As 
cension. 


0    You  and  I  have  stood  poignantly  close  upon  the  edge  of 

perilous  slanting  — 
And  with  sublime  sunbeams  bouncing  from  upturned  face  to 

face 

And  measuring  upon  each  utter  equality  of  dazzle  — 
0  you  and  I  have  leant  fraternally  together  in  a  light 
Reducing  to  proportionate  form  at  last  — 
All  those  melancholy  grotesques  of  conscious  life  — 
Yea  and  together  heard  a  conclusive  goodness  affirming 
Through  vast  harp-sweet  spaces  — 
Then  —  then  —  the  reverential  swoon  of  our  knees 
Before  this  momentary  shining  out  of  the  beyond 
Has  been  cause  for  a  touch  between  us  — 
Ah  what  union  in  this  accidental  knocking  of  knees 
Before  a  Shared  Presence  — 
[66] 


When  suddenly  —  suddenly  — 

The  thrown-back  hood  of  vision  clamping  down  precipitant, 
And  a  sadness  in  the  air  as  of  some  Divine  Retreat  —  * 

When  my  claw  stirring  —  waking  —  reaching  out  — 
And  in  your  answering  motion  a  gracious  shoot  of  reverberat 
ing  "  yea  " — 

Then  your  eyes  becoming  a  liquid  gale 
Importunate  —  parting  —  pressing  aside  my  branches  — 
And  your  mouth  a  distortion  of  fire  skipping  —  falling  — 
Clinging  strangely  among  my  blossoms  — 
My  blossoms  opening  —  shedding  for  you  in  ghastly  broad 

abandon  — 

0    love  —  love  —  unequipped  —  unaware 
Of  the  subtle  fatality  in  your  own  repletion. 


"Your  Love  to  Woman  and  Woman's  Love  to  Man,  would 
that  it  was  sympathy  for  suffering,  and  veiled  deities,  but  gen 
erally  two  animals  light  on  one  another." 

(Frederick  Nietzsche  —  "  Thus  Spake  Zarathustra") 


[67] 


XXV 

PHOTOGRAPH  of  my  mother 

Of  lines  so  familiar  — 

So  intensely  seen  upon  endless  occasion  — 

Now  in  particular  recalling  those  feverish  moments  of  child 
hood 

Whilst  the  sheet  plucked  in  twitching  chilly,  hands  — 

Whilst  the  coals  in  their  grate  rising  into  pinnacled  Valhallas  — 

Falling  into  burning  cities  — 

Whilst  the  blue  shadow  of  a  door  noiselessly  opening 

Against  the  white  wall  — 

And  now  the  flowing  taste  of  jellies  — 

The  moist  sweet  feathery  caress  of  flowers  — 

While  always  near  the  rhythmic  gestures  of  my  mother  sew 
ing— 

And  of  the  peaceful  sound  of  her  work 

And  of  her  gentle  sigh  toward  me  — 

So  commiserate  —  so  protecting  — 

0  how  sweet  and  warm  and  clear  for  the  pavane  of  dreams 

Was  my  sick  room  — 

And  now  what  pathos  in  this  picture  of  my  mother  — 

Because  she  suffers  more  from  me  still  than  from  any  other  — 

And  I  have  come  to  pain  —  through  so  much  else. 


[68] 


XXVI 

0   OUR  love  is  like  a  rainbow 

Shooting  up  from  chasms  of  incredibly  scarlet  glee  — 

Yet  illuminating  suddenly  the  far  blonde  face  of  a  placid 

star  — 

0  our  love  is  like  a  bridge  fountaining  its  iridescent  strength 
From  across  some  chaos  of  claw-sprawling  spaces  — 
Yet  toward  a  columned  brightness  of  strangely  perfected  meas 
ure — 

And  again  our  love  is  like  Death  — 
Seeming  ever  to  culminate  in  total  cessation  — 
As  a  beautiful  dual  merging  —  folding  in  behind  shadows  — 
To  an  increasing  surge  of  song. 


[69] 


XXVII 

I  SEE  a  splendid  life  opening  out  before  us 

0  elected  mate  ever  poignant  for  me 
And  pressing  unto  my  effulgent  crescent 
The  rest  of  the  round  —  my  circle  — 
And  amazing  me  with  joyous  entirety  — 

1  see  a  splendid  life  opening  out  before  us  — 
I  smell  the  sturdy  salt  and  pine  of  adventure 

Exhaling  toward  me  at  the  thought  of  being  lashed  in  flight 
To  the  storm-courting  svelte  rigging  of  your  body  — 

0  I  see  a  splendid  life  opening  out  before  us  — 
Despite  that  cut-glass  upon  the  bare  foot  of  sudden  anger  — 
Despite  those  creeping  melancholy  fingers  of  sustained  mis 
understanding 

(With  their  lashes  drooping  over  smouldering  flames, 
With  their  staccato  wrenchings  away  upon  the  pillow) 
And  again  despite  that  abrupt  reversed  scarlet  scrawl  of  jeal 
ousy 
Blurring  my  wifely  hymn-book  — 


[70] 


Aye,  despite  all  these  existent  recesses  jammed  with  past  inhi 
bitions  —  license  — 
And  self-love  striving  to  love  — 
And  self-pity  melting  humour  into  a  glue  of  hatred  — 

Nevertheless  and  despite  this  whole  tribe 

Taking  on  the  role  of  risks  and  swarming  up 

From  our  abused  nuance  during  centuries  — 

Nevertheless  I  affirm  there  to  be  a  splendid  life  opening  out 

before  us 
And  indeed  a  great  future  flinging  along  far  —  far  ahead  of 

us  — 

And  with  its  vast  muttering  unclassified  yet 
Whether  litanizing  failure  — 

Whether  swelling  to  a  note  of  sublime  applause  — 
I  say  who  knows  —  who  cares 

Who  is  competent  to  become  inseparable  from  the  moment  — 
Who  is  worthy  to  enter  in  —  react  —  and  faithfully  record 

the  moment  — 

And  I  loving  you  with  that  perfect  freedom 
Which  is  replete  expression  of  each  one  of  my  gifts  — 
Must  surely  thus  love  you  for  ever  — 

0  indeed  I  see  a  splendid  life  unfolding  before  us, 
Elected  mate  ever  poignant  for  me  • — 
And  pressing  unto  my  effulgent  crescent 
The  rest  of  the  round  —  my  circle  — 
And  amazing  me  with  joyous  entirety. 


[71] 


DESCRIPTIVE 


I 

Sonata,  Op.  54  —  Ornstein 

MUSCULAR  grotesques  crowing  to  one  another 

From  moon-stained  minarets  — 

The  mauve-rayed  air  of  a  classic  dawn 

Breezing  into  legato  motion  —  virginal  draperies  — 

When  suddenly  obscene  juggleries 

With  passions  combative  —  tentative  — 

Arabesque,  G  Major  —  Debussy 

A  million  pattering  feet  of  ballet  — 

The  "  jeux  "  of  puppets  —  and  with  bubbles  — 

And  across  nets  made  of  shadows  rimmed  by  lightning  — 

Etude,  D  Flat  Major.     Ravel 

The  lisping  perfection  of  emasculated  fancy 
Swerving  into  that  self-saturated  hush 
Of  complaining  silence  — 

The  Composer-Pianist 

Greek-browed  —  moist-eyed  —  sinuous  — 

And  about  his  brooding  face 

That  gloaming  light  of  thought  ever  breaking  into  flames 

Kindling  to  warm  into  blossoming  expressive  — 

Those  strange  fruits  of  a  curious  reverie. 


[75] 


II 

THE  ATLANTIC  FROM  MY  WINDOW 

WATCHING  the  foam  draping  in  hissing  white  garlands  — 
This  rearing  coil  of  the  waves  — 

Watching  the  tails  of  fish 

Joyfully  spouting  up  in  sudden  black  dots  — 

Along  the  blue  shimmer  — 

Watching  the  patterns  of  foam  receding  swiftly  back  — 
Mounting  —  streaking  the  unbroken  waves  — 
Like  snow-spotted  mountains  — 

And  becoming  absorbed  then  —  sucked  down  — 

Down  through  this  rhythmic  thunder  — 

Down  —  down  into  those  vastly  stirring  depths  of  my  self. 


[76] 


HI 

FRANCE  — AUTUMNAL 

0  SAD  spatter  of  rain  — 

Echoing  in  the  court  below  — 

And  sounding  somehow  like  the  call 

Of  ghostly  swallows  — 

0   Autumnal  France 

This  mournful  yellow  trellis 

Of  your  falling  leaves 

Ever  parted  by  Love  —  dual  — 

Ice-white  with  a  sense  of  ending  — 

And  for  ever  dropping  The  Diminutive  Black  Glove  — 

And  as  the  living  whole  cloven  in  dead  twain 

And  flinging  blindly  apart  — 

Then  how  small  appearing  this  fading  black  glove  — 

Through  the  immense-breeding  mantle  of  darkness  — 

0  how  pitiably  slight  a  human  figure  anyway 

Against  the  vast  shadow-streaked  horizon  • — 

Of  a  great  gesture. 


[77] 


IV 

THE  dawn  for  me  is  like  some  still-born  face 
Rising  and  reflecting  a  frustrated  loveliness  — 
Over  shrouded  landscapes. 

The  dawn  for  me  is  like  a  silent  radiance 
Of  irrevocable  spiritual  decision  — 
Perfuming  the  air  with  frigid  splendour. 

The  dawn  for  me  is  like  the  ripple  of  celestial  voices 
Echoing  away  among  opalescent  cloud  domes  — 
And  leaving  the  beholder  childish  from  comfort  — 
And  more  vulnerable  far  to  the  hot-footed  hammering  of  a 
sunlit  day  — 

Ah  then  the  accumulated  wistf  ulness  of  memories  — 

Tugging  abruptly  as  starving  children 

Whom  one  has  forgotten  to  feed  — 

Ah  then  the  sore  gathering  —  spreading  upon  a  heart 

Congested  with  diverging  affections  — 

And  pallidly  passing  into  attenuate  dismemberment 

Through  conflicting  impulse  — 

For  such  a  one  —  the  dawn  is  like  an  arpeggio  of  harps  — 
Luring  —  inviting  —  to   pass  backward  from  the  day  —  and 

for  ever 

Into  those  slurred  violet  and  alabaster  reveries  — 
Of  half -dreams. 
[78] 


THE  CIRCUS  — MONTMARTRE 

FACES  —  circling  in  up-flung  tiers 
Like  livid  streaks  — 

And  at  the  very  top  silhouettes  crouched 
Knotted  toward  the  pit  — 
Like  trees  becoming  almost  all  root 
In  order  to  keep  foothold  against  a  wind 
Bending  them  for  ever  gulf  ward  — 
And  music  jangling  down 

From  a  high  cage  introduced  through  portieres  of  smoke  — 
And  holding  in  stiff  bold  rhythm 
The  far  below  wound-up  gestures  and  cries 
Of  acrobats  —  conjurors  —  and  lady  equestrians  — 
All  appearing  to  me  somehow  through  my  half -shut  eyes 
A  strange  mixture  of  wood  —  brass  —  and  painted  stripes  — 
Yet  one  tragic-closed  face  standing  out  amongst  them  all  — 
(And  like  a  murder-stained  arm 
Rearing  starkly  erect  amidst  a  pile  of  cushions — ) 
Just  so  this  one  tragic  face  flaring  its  silent  bleakness 
In  through  that  midst  of  row  upon  row  —  tier  upon  tier  — 
Of  humour-quivered  flesh  — 

0  exactly  like  a  blasted  vine  scarring  the  very  centre  of  hun 
dreds 

Of  breeze-tumbled  roses  — 
This  one  tragic-closed  face  standing  out  amongst  them  all. 


[79] 


VI 

VERBENA 

VERBENA,  reminding  me  of  twittering  childish  feet  — 
Of  close  curls  sculpted  to  the  head  in  moisture  — 
Of  the  darting  enthralled  form  of  childhood 
Sublimely  discovering  — 
Through  a  blaze  of  August  gardens  — 

Verbena,  reminding  me  of  summer  luncheons 
In  a  room  cooled  by  lowered  awnings  — 
Of  pyramidal  blackberries  —  raspberries  —  peaches  — 
Recalling  in  odour  their  blossoms  — 
While  without  beyond  screens 
Bees  muttering  avidly  through  melting  heat 
From  fluted  cup  to  cup  of  mauve  pale  Canterbury  bells  — 
(These   peeping   in    a    fringe   of   gentle    glory  —  across    our 
sill  — ) 

Verbena  —  0  so  reminding  me 

Of  youth's  humid  eyes  dazzling  with  fitful  dreams  — 

(As  some  deep  pond  is  threaded  suddenly  with  gems  of  glisten 

From  a  trout's  skimming  back  touched  by  the  sun  — ) 

And  so  intensely  recalling  youth's  tanned  sprawled  limbs 

Completely  relaxed  — 

(From  lately  spearing  the  surf  with  slim  clear  diving — ) 

And  so  revisioning  for  me  youth's  firm  berry-stained  mouth 

Scornful  enpurpled  as  the  lips  of  feasting  classic  warriors  — 

[80] 


Verbena  —  Verbena  —  reminding  me  of  summer  luncheons 
In  a  room  cooled  by  lowered  awnings  — 
Of  pyramidal  blackberries  —  raspberries  —  peaches  — 
Recalling  in  odour  their  blossoms 

While  before  me  now  —  and  looking  like  a  knob  of  city  sun 
shine  — 

A  bowl  of  lemon-coloured  glass 
Quite  filled  with  Verbena. 


[81] 


VII 
SNOW 

THE  snow  is  falling  like  feathers  from  the  wings 
Of  sky-bound  virgins  — 

Is  descending  as  that  quiescent  hush 

Across  shoulders  lately  brushed 

By  the  transparent  flight  of  death  towards  life  — 

The  snow  is  becoming  a  pallid  rhythmic  trellis 
Shimmering  between  me  and  material  contours  — 

The  snow  is  becoming  a  couch  of  stars  freshly  chiselled 
Inviting  me  to  glitter  back  into  oblivion  — 

Ah  this  falling  snow  is  erasing  my  tentative  lost  footsteps  — 
Is  blurring  away  memory  beneath  meadows  crystalline  — 
Whose  surface  once  more  commencing  to  be  broken  by  the 

birth  of  lilies  — 
Whose  surface  once  more  beginning  to  be  crowded  by  a  flare 

of  angels  — 

Preceding  before  that  haloed  loveliness 
Of  Spiritual  Awakening. 


[82] 


VIII 
ABRIGADA 

0  LOVELY  house 

Of  chaste  lines  and  vast  openings 

Unto  wind-rippled  grasses  — 

0   lovely  house 

Of  unclad  walls  licked  into  strange  patterns 

By  furious  storm-tongues  — 

0   lovely  house 

Of  arched  windows 

Framing  —  now  a  river  draped  through  the  land 

Trimming  the  green  with  silver  — 

Now  an  oak  forest  quivering  —  flushing  — 

Like  a  strand  of  rainbows 

Under  the  pouring  glitter 

Of  autumnal  sunset  — 

0    lovely  house 

Of  spacious  dim  hallways  — 

Where  happiness  trailing  so  often  her  draperies 

Their  dim  hum  hardly  remarked  — 

(Even  as  some  person  whose  expression  is  habitually  glad 

From  the  beauty  of  inward  thought) 

0   lovely  house  —  how  sweet  it  would  have  been 

To  have  once  been  happy  — 

Among  your  serene  vague  spaces. 


[83] 


IX 

THE  DOORS  OF  NOTRE  DAME 

0    UNEXPECTED,  vast  Saints  towering  —  emerging  out  of  col 
umned  frames 

Stained  with  the  leprous  salt  of  ageless  weather  — 
And  crooking  premonitory  fingers  — 
While  now  bells  hammering  the  air  like  iron  fists 
Beating  all  aware  to  that  metallic  command  of  religion — - 

O  tier  upon  tier  of  slender  esthetes 

Frigidly  fingering  their  intricate  symbols 

Of  a  new  "  Voluptas  " 

So  aureoled  in  benignant  calm  — 

Yet  —  quite  appropriately 

Their  slim  conforming  feet 

Half -clutched  amongst  those  wet  jaws 

Of  late  and  terrible  misdemeanour  — 

So  arch  upon  arch  — 

Medallion  after  medallion  — 

Holding  their  virginal  passivities  erect  — 

These    same    inclining    still  —  the    sidelong    paramours    of 

snakes  — 

So  row  over  row  — 

Frieze  above  frieze  —  filled  with  demoniac-vestal  mixture 
Of  fang  —  of  prayer  — 

Glooming  up  —  and  now  through  the  descendant  night  — 
From  a  bank  of  fleur-de-lys. 
[84] 


WALKING  ROUND  NOTRE  DAME  — EAST  WING 

GARGOYLES  —  with  their  sinister  sheepish  faces 

Of  furtive  lust  — 

With  their  fat-coiled  monkish-coiffed  heads 

Thickening  into  demoniac  limbs  — 

(Just  like  a  sausage  bursting  at  the  ends  between  its  string) 

Gargoyles  —  with  their  lithe-stretched  female-breasted 

Half -tiger  and  half-bird  bodies  — 

And  again  gargoyles 

Scale-skinned,  carrion-winged,  black-bellied  — 

Coronetted  with  ecclesiastical  respect. 

0    pinnacled,  infinitely  spiked  heights 
Fluted  by  myriad  galleries  — 
Arabesque  —  meandering  — 
0  tier  upon  tier  of  terraces 
Each  the  pedestal  of  innumerable  buttresses 
Springing  —  rearing    sturdily    with    poised    upon   each   lace- 
strewn  apex 
Its  blasphemous  tomb 
Of  jeering  slit-mouthed  infernal  — 

Nay,  all  the  fiendish  insight  of  man 

Into  those  slime-strewn  lily-vaulted  tendencies 

Of  his  becoming  being  — 

Erupting  in  dark  heaven-odoured  suggestions 

Along  these  fountainal  intricacies  of  Notre  Dame. 

[85] 


XI 

INSIDE  NOTRE  DAME 

RAINBOWED  ghosts  single  or  in  rows  — 

Tossing  up  their  fire-edged  three-cornered  balls  — 

Enclosing  countless  zodiac  designs 

Of  star  —  of  crescent  — 

And  now  the  sun  setting 

Behind  the  rose  window  of  Notre  Dame  — 

And  casting  a  million  opals  steeped  in  blood 

Upon  the  surrounding  greyness  — 

While  behind  the  opposite  window  night  arising  — 

Infusing  these  vigorous  colours 

With  a  delicate  deliberate  insistent  repression  — 

Until  gradually  they  assuming 

The  pale  grave  candours  of  virginal  splendour  — 

(As  a  lover  recalling  them 

Upon  his  sable  bed  of  death) 

And  now  —  afar  —  through  distant  vaulted  gloom 

A  shower  of  arrested  stars  — 

Prayers  —  importunate  — 

Humbly  attempting  to  warm  into  noticing  them 

Those  narrow  feet  of  the  Mother  of  God  — 

And  into  stepping  down  and  granting  — 

Their  gentle  flaming  need. 

THE  END 

[86] 


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